"Barefoot Rick" Roeber will be running his 50th barefoot marathon (68th marathon overall) on January 31 at the Waco Miracle Match Marathon in Waco, Texas. Race Director Nancy Goodnight has created a "Barefoot Running Division" for this year's marathon, hoping to attract participants from the rising interest in barefoot running due in part to Christopher McDougall's New York Times bestseller Born To Run.

Barefoot Rick will be helping bring awareness for the Scott & White Marrow Donor Program. Proceeds from Sunday's races will go to benefit the program. Roeber has a notable connection to Central Texas. His relatives settled in Moody in the 1850s and his great-aunt (Lorraine Brumbelow-Pike) was a nurse at Scott & White in the 1960s. She died in 1969 from

Multiple Myeloma, a form of bone cancer. Ironically, she would be a candidate today of Scott & White's Marrow Donor Program. (See below "About the Miracle Match Donor Program".)

Roeber suffered from chronic knee problems through most of 2003 due to poor running technique. He began running barefoot in October of that year because he learned that running barefoot encourages proper foot strike, thereby alleviating knee problems by not overstriding.

In addition to Waco being his 50th barefoot marathon (26.2 miles), Roeber has ran two barefoot ultramarathons of more than 40 miles each. He runs daily, averaging between 45-50 barefoot miles a week in all weather conditions.

In 2004, Roeber started "Soles For Souls" which has raised thousands of dollars for the homeless and the needy, both locally and world-wide.

Barefoot Rick will be arriving in the Waco area on Saturday 1/30/10. Roeber will give the key-note talk ("Running the R.A.C.E") at the pasta dinner Saturday evening at 6:30 p.m. at the Waco Hilton. Pre-race and post race interviews are available upon request. Please contact by email at barefootrick@barefootrunner.org or Rick's mobile at 816-668-8763.

About the Miracle Match Donor Program - The beneficiary of this event are people all over the world that are in a very special race of their own - a race against cancer and other diseases that could be cured by a marrow transplant.

All proceeds of the Miracle Match Marathon go to find a "Miracle Match" for these patients by tissue typing volunteer donors for the "Be The Match Registry" operated in Central Texas through the Scott & White Marrow Donor Program.

Romans 10:15 - How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!